When duty calls

It's time for another life check. That’s when I check whether 'what matters to me' is reflected in how I spend my time, energy, money, other resources. It’s also when I take stock of whether I have a good handle on what resources are available in my life, how much is required for non-negotiables and whether my goals are a suitable size for the available resources. It’s what I call checking my ‘time investment’ (as opposed to time management – I’d hate to get to the end of my life having managed my time amazingly but on things that didn’t really matter).

And right now, I need to factor in another calculation. Right now, my actions are not going to align with the bigger picture of what matters to me. And now is not the time to re-align them. This is a time in my life for investing in things that are the right thing to do because they are my responsibility. And my challenge is to be self-aware enough to know I have chosen freely to prioritise duty over what really matters to me. And my challenge will be to keep one non-resentful eye on the bigger picture so I don't forget who I am and what matters as I plough through a time of prioritising things that don't align with what really matters to me.

Why do I bother with duty? Why do things I don't particularly want to do? Why work hard on things that won’t help me towards my bigger picture goals? Because while what matters to me is important, I am also a social creature and I live in community. And sometimes duty needs to come first. And because sometimes, the doing of duty is the only opportunity we will get to develop the character we will need to achieve what matters.

So I sit with my blank page. I look at the next months, the next two years. I think of what I've been experiencing as growing and conflicting pressures. My pen is poised. And I think:

·         What resources do I have?

·         What rhythm do I need days and weeks to have so I can stay healthy and renew my strength?

·         What is my big picture?

·         What is my immediate duty?

·         And therefore what needs to become my immediate picture?

·         How do I choose to allocate resources?

·         And, most importantly, how do I become more me through this battle? How do I emerge victorious, with clear sight and a clear conscience? And battle it is, to let go of what matters to me for this season of my life for the sake of what I see as my duty. 

Why I joined a union

Why I've joined a union

I first became self employed because I couldn't work in a 'proper' job because of family circumstances and my own mental health. It suited me down to the ground - but only because I have a husband who at that time had a reliable employed income. 

Later I ran a microbusiness as owner/director. Now I'm working for a small cooperative I helped found.

Along the way I discovered coworking and twitter as ways to build networks, develop a sense of solidarity with other microbusiness and self employed people, and deal with the isolation that can come with no office space. I met Indycube that way too.

As one person, it is easy to be picked off. I've met skilled graphic designers, videographers and speakers who will work below the living wage just to secure work. I've heard of people driven to food banks by late paying customers. 

I firmly believe in cooperative principles. I support mutual aid and shared, mutual self-help over charity and hand-outs. 

And I support anything where those of us at the coal face of the economy can have a voice in policy discussions, debates and decisions about work. 

I don't have time or emotional energy to do that for myself. I'm too busy being part of a microbusiness, and it's not something I'm particularly skilled at doing. That's one reason for me joining the new Indycube Community union. They do what they are good at - speaking up and representing us - while I get on with what I'm good at.

The union isn't just idealistic talk or speaking out on our behalf. They've identified with us union members some key practical issues that make life harder for microbusinesses and self-employed people - isolation, late payment, legal support and what happens when you're too ill to work. In true cooperative style, Indycube Community has found ways we can work together to share the load. This means that by joining the union, I don't need to fight for payment or against unfair terms by myself. I can use the coworking spaces when I want the company of like minded-people. And there's even a chance to join a mutual scheme where we all pay in and can all get help if too ill to work. It's back to the future. It's what happened in Welsh communities before social security. It's what self-employed people need again today. 

The idea of a union for independent, self-employed people is a bit radical. So they are offering a no-money trial membership. I was going to say a free trial, but it isn't. Indycube Community is its members. If we put nothing in, all we will get out are the monetary benefits not a strong voice and representation. We need to put in our support which means replying to emails asking about life as a self-employed person and telling others about the new union.

Here's a link to join. http://www.indycube.community/join-us/ Please don't join out of selfish self-interest. Join because we are #strongertogether and the UK needs us to be heard.

Free to a good home

Short story starter - free to a good home! I didn't intend this as a short story starter, just a combination of observation and whimsy while sat in a cafe in Penclawdd. But I read it back and it sounds like a great start of a story. There's just one problem. I don't write stories. And that's why it's free to a good home. Just tell me what you do with it if you use it.

I notice what I notice because of who I am. The waiter's apron. How the plates are balanced. Sounds. Arms. Movement. The swift, confident wiping of the table, white dishcloth polishing the surface for the next customer. The colour of the table and four chairs, the textures and the irregular, homely placement of the chairs round the square table. Never faces. I never notice faces. 

I noticed the child's coat only because someone drew attention to it. Its vibrant, bold ballon pattern is out of keeping with the beige and cream decor. There is no sound of a child, no sight of a child in the cafe. Just the coat of a child. And I begin to create stories of how that coat came to be there, hanging on a coat stand next to the obviously adult damp coats and waterproofs in a cafe of adults.

Not just 'the usual suspects'

I'm not keen on that phrase. But I hear it so often. It's short hand for 'not many people responded to our consultation. Not many people ever respond to our consultations. It's only ever the same few people who respond'. But there's something negative, as if it's the fault of those few people for putting themselves forward.

At the same time, I often hear 'hard to reach'. And almost every time I hear it, or its siblings 'difficult to engage', 'seldom heard' and 'disengaged', it is being used to describe groups of people who are perceived as being difficult for organisations to get hold of or who resist joining the organisation's activities.

I'd like to argue that both types of phrase are used to locate problems with public engagement on the public. Often it's framed as the organisation needing to change because some groups of people have problems engaging. But even then, the people are seen as having a problem or barrier which the organisation has to overcome by adjusting their otherwise adequate way of consulting, so the problemnis still seen as located in that group of people. I hasten to add, this isn't always the case.some organisations realise they need to be inclusive, rather than start from a basis of being excluding and then needing to make adjustments for certain 'problem' groups.

I want to reframe the issue. If 98% of the population do not get involved in consultations on issues that affect their lives - and that they almost definitely discuss at home, down the pub, at the school gate or with friends over coffee -  then I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the organisation not the population.

That lies behind my PhD. And it lies behind my three minute explanation of my PhD. The 3MT (three minute thesis) is a game for academics that could be called 'Can you explain your PhD in three minutes using only six slides?'. If you have four minutes to spare (I added a title slide, explanation and spoke a bit slower for the YouTube version than when I presented it in public when I could wave my arms around and adjust speed based on audience body language), I'd be pleased if you chose to watch this https://youtu.be/LfEHzG79KJk

Transferable knowledge needs to be transferred

Want research impact? Work together as the people who will generate and use the research - from the start.

Want to improve services? Work together as people who commission, run and use the service - from the start.

Want to design a website or app? Work together as a team of creatives, coders, potential users - from the start.

Want policies that work? Work together as people who have a stake in what that policy says - from the start.

I'm sure you can spot at least one common theme (hopefully at least three). 

At the moment, frustratingly, people working in these spheres are developing their own language and methods within their own silos. There are fabulous insights and approaches that can be transferred from digital user design to participatory research. And many of the research impact questions have already been addressed in public engagement work.

So, here's my plea if you are trying to produce research that people will use, services or digital platforms that people like using or policies that deliver. Please explore what others are learning and see if you can transfer lessons they have learned or ways they are thinking to your own work.

A winning formula for abstracts

As a follow-up to yesterday's blog: 

I want to submit an abstract for a conference where the papers are published as a yearbook. As an insecure student, I thought I'd better read up on how to structure abstracts. I found plenty of advice on winning formulas. I was advised to frame it around key questions, or to 'complete the sentences' for a set of sentences that started with specific wordings, or to pick key words that would make the paper appear higher up the list when people use search engines.

 

Then I had a bright idea. I thought I'd (non-scientifically) analyse the abstracts from a previous year's book to see what their winning formula is before I got cracking on my abstract. Here's what I found...

Abstract 1

• Context
• This article will
• Key finding 

 

Abstract 2

• This paper is on the topic...
• More detail about the topic
• My claim

 

Abstract 3

• This article aims to explore
• It will focus..
• Key data
• This article concludes by

 

Abstract 4

• Framing
• Contention (nevertheless)
• Purpose of the research

 

Abstract 5

• This article is (content)
• The article explores
• This is an opportunity for me to

 

Abstract 6 

• Context
• This article (content)
• This article (source of data)
• Conclusion

 

Abstract 7

• It's about X research project
• Framing
• Key finding
• Contention

 

Abstract 8

• Explanation of title
• Why the topic is relevant
• In this article I will

 

Abstract 9

• It's about X research project
• The focus within that project

 

Abstract 10

• Context
• Importance of topic
• Questions that will be addressed in this article

If you can identify the winning formula from this lot, your brain must be wired in a different way from mine as I cannot spot a pattern. 

 

Conclusion: Be me. Don't follow a formula. Give readers the information I think will help them decide whether they want to read my article. As for the conference and publication, the idea will be worth publishing or it won't. 

Choosing my academic voice

The Thesis Whisperer gave a workshop on writing a paper in seven days at Bangor University back in 2015. She said “as academics, we are known by our writings”. That has stuck with me ever since.

 

I write for a profession. Or, more usually, I take other people’s writings and try to communicate the content to specific audiences. I am used to the idea of different voices for different audiences. I am used to thinking what other literature my audience might read – or whether they may prefer not to read at all and get their information from other sources. Having read them, I am used to mimicking that style of writing.

 

Ask me for a blog post, I can write one. Ask me for a magazine article, I can write one. Ask me for a formal response to a formal letter, I can write one. Ask me to write for people who use Easy Read, no problem. Ask me to write an academic paper, I…. I just can’t do it.

 

I need to unpick why. I need to unpick it urgently because yesterday (which has prompted these reflections) and tomorrow (for which I need to prepare) are paper-writing days with my supervisors.

 

So far, I’ve come up with four possible reasons that my mind freezes at the idea of ‘academic paper’.

1. I haven’t read enough papers to be able to identify and learn to mimic an academic voice that feels appropriate for me to use. I’ve spent more time reading books than papers. More significantly, I’m not sure enough where my approach sits within the rest of sociological research to work out what might be an ‘appropriate’ (to my mind) voice.
2. There is no single academic audience for my work. Within sociology there are many tones of voice and many audiences. It would be quite possible for me to adopt multiple voices. But - the words of The Thesis Whisperer come back to me. Do I want to be an academic chameleon, choosing a voice for an audience? If I am to be known to fellow academics by my writings, maybe I don’t want to adapt my writings to different academic audiences.
3. I am insecure. I struggle with calling myself an academic. I associate ‘being an academic’ with the style of writing I grew up with on a science degree in the 1980s. Specifically, I associate ‘being an academic’ with citing literature and making sure I have plenty of references. Negatively, I associate citing with hiding behind others, a way of justifying what I think – “look, it’s not me a PhD student saying it, the eminent X said it”. I am conflicted, therefore about adopting the literature-citing academic voice. I feel I should, because that’s what ‘proper academics’ do. I know I can’t (I don’t know enough of the literature to feel I can make a good job of it). I rebel at being forced to adopt that style – when in reality it is only me that is saying the literature-citing style is the only way of ‘being an academic’.  
4. I do want to write differently to an academic audience from general public audiences. I want to respect the wisdom and learning of fellow academics. But I still want to be me and sound like me.
5. I don’t know who I am academically yet. That’s certainly true. But I won’t find out by sitting silently. The best way forward is to try out different voices until I find the one that sounds most like me. Given nothing else about my life has been ‘off the shelf’, I doubt my academic voice will be an ‘off the shelf’ voice.

 

I’m glad I’ve blogged this. I’ve gone in a loop in two years since I blogged http://annecollis.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/as-academic-you-are-known-through-your.html. Then it was fear of writing a blog. Now it’s fear of writing a paper.

 

The act of blogging has helped me feel calmer about writing my first academic paper. It doesn’t need to be perfect. When I look back in 20 years time with my rich, lyrical voice, I may be embarrassed by its 2017 squeaky, out of tune tone. But that’s OK. Right now I just need to be brave, open my mouth and see what comes out.

The academic's muse

I think, reflect, observe, create. I do not know the literature. I have not learned patterns of thinking and ways to conceptualise the social world by reading the works of those who have gone before me in wondering about the social world. 

What value do I bring to academic life?

I bring the value of the muse. I sit and interact with those who know the literature and have engaged at a personal level with many of those who write. I bring an academically uninformed critique to academics, an alternative way of seeing the social world. As I grapple with reflecting on their learning, their citations, their 'that reminds me of...' as we talk about some thing of mutual interest, I begin to adopt the guise of an academic. But as yet it is a very shallow veneer.

I was bemused by an academic who felt only able to research 'her field' because that was her expertise. To me, she has much wider expertise, so much to say that can apply for other fields and other phenomena. But I think now that what she was saying is that her sense of expertise is conjoined with her knowledge of the literature and those currently producing literature. To her, I am her muse. If she were to apply herself to another field, she would become the muse to someone else.

I value the role of muse as a distinct and valid contribution to academic life and research. Without a muse, it is easy to become distanced from the social world beyond your office, and down that road lies stagnation. 

Naming 'it'

[I really don't know what I'm talking about! But there's something niggling away at me about the power of naming. If you've any thoughts, do share them]

When you name it, it becomes 'a thing’

This isn't about naming people. This about giving a name to 'it'. In this case, let's call 'it' a concept.

I start with unformed, unvoiced ideas floating around in my head like free-flowing particles. They have no form, but they do exist.

As I put them into words, they begin to coalesce and align into a shape, becoming increasingly stable at the core but still fluid and ever-changing at the margins. As I test out different words, the shape changes and grows more stable.

But it is still not 'a thing'. There is nothing tangible about it. It has no life outside my head except as a nebulous cloud of thoughts put into words. I could not pass 'it' to another as I might pass a ball because it is not yet an 'it'.

And then I name it. Still-nebulous ideas are given a name and in the giving of the name they are given a boundary. They solidify and take substance within that boundary. That act of naming it makes it 'a thing'.

Of course, this is all illusionary. The naming does not change anything. Ideas do not have substance. And yet... By the act of naming our musings, we have created something that has a potential life beyond us. It becomes something sufficiently tangible for others to grasp.  It takes on a life of its own as people interact with the name and become part of the shaping of what was, once, ours alone. 

Lessons from campanology for coproduction

 Campanology is the proper name for the kind of bellringing you do in a bell tower, where each ringer is ringing one bell by pulling alternately on the furry bit or the tail end a rope (while remembering to let go of the furry bit but never letting go of the tail end...).

It struck me that guidance for coproducing a beautiful sound in campanology is very similar to guidance for coproducing a society where public services and people using them share and achieve an aim. 

Here are some rules for campanology. See if they ring true [sorry, couldn't resist the pun] for you in your coproduction.

1.   Know the method* so you have an overall picture of how everyone will move.

2.   Know your place and how you will be weaving between the other bells.

3.   Watch the ropes and listen to the spacing between bells.

4.   When things go wrong, hold your own place in the ‘dance’ so others can orientate themselves back into the right place, but also be willing when there are small wobbles to accommodate those before and behind by shifting fractionally from where you should be - it makes the everything sound more harmonious even though you yourself are now not exactly where you 'should' be. 

5.   If all goes horrible wrong, call 'rounds**' and once everyone is back into the basic rhythm and 'holding pattern' of rounds, and has worked out what went wrong, try again.

6.   It's not about blaming the one who got lost. It's about working out how to all get it right together next time.

7.   The neighbours don't listen to individual bells to see which one is getting it right. They listen to the music. 

8.   Towers*** stand or fall by their tower captain. But all towers need a mix of skills and personalities to be strong, fun places to spend time and learn. 

9.   You've never arrived as a bell ringer. There's always more to learn. But from quite early in your ringing career, you can be part of making simple beautiful music.

* method – a pre-agreed pattern for how the ringers will change the order in which the bells are rung

** rounds – when the bells are rung from highest note down to lowest note in order

***tower – the group of bellringers who belong to a particular bell tower

Bellringing

Bellringing is more like riding a bike than riding a bike.

I tried riding a bike after decades of not riding one. It wasn’t like ‘riding a bike’. It was unpleasant and scary as I tried tentatively to get on and pedal away. I managed to tweak my hamstring, skin my calf with the pedal and bash my chest on the handlebar. And that was before I made it near the road. I won’t be trying it for another few decades if at all.

Last night I went bellringing after three decades of campanological inactivity. I went because of the power of twitter to connect people who have no connection and make you feel like friends. Bellringing had been part of my school days (lunchtime sessions to learn to ring at Hereford Cathedral) and part of my undergraduate days (our reputation was that we drank more than the rugby club). And then it pretty much stopped.

I went last night because I still feel vulnerably unconnected down South. Empirically, I am better connected than many people. If someone carried out a quality of life or community connectedness audit with me, or checked if I was ‘accessing the community’, I’d score higher than most. I guess the clue is in the ‘vulnerably’.  Mental health wise, I thrived being embedded in a number of different social networks in North Wales. My multiple arenas of connectedness felt like safety nets for my safety nets for my safety net for my immediate close family and friends. It shared the burden when I was unwell, and it grounded me in reality when I was finding it difficult to locate myself without reference to outside points. “I am Anne. I live in… I am part of…” style grounding is highly effective for me when I dissociate. Saying “I am Anne. I used to live in, but now I live in… I was part of, but now I’m just beginning to be part of...” doesn’t have the same grounding effect. It can feed the sense of dislocation. 

Connected is not just the knowing, it’s the being known by others. It’s knowing that others know you well enough and in enough contexts to hold your identity when you are finding it difficult to hold it yourself.

Bellringing.  If you’d asked me to remember anything about how to ring, I’d have struggled. Never mind whether I could remember the mathematical patterns to ring methods, I couldn’t have reliably said how to pull off or set the bell, or what senses you use to make sure you keep your place in the bom ti tum ti tum ti tum ti bom rhythm of plain rounds. (and, yes, I know it should start with a ti, but for whatever reason, I’ve always started with the bom of the tenor bell – as if the first set of ti tum ti tum ti tum ti – is just leading up to the first solid reassuring bom.

I’m greeted with enthusiasm as if I am already part of the community. I am given so much support and encouragement. I’m given consideration. I’m not treated as an outsider, but as part of the tower from the moment I’m invited to raise one of the bells ready for the start of practice.

And it’s all so familiar. The people are like ringers I grew up with.  I could almost match them to the people I knew. After a reminder to coil the rope before starting to raise the bell, my body remembers how to ring. We are fine as long as I don’t try to think, and just feel. After standing the bell, I tie the tail end (dangly end of the rope) without thinking. When I think about it, though, I have no idea how to do it. We ring some rounds. I try some called changes. We play with the simplest method – Plain Bob. Later I have the fun of being the ‘bom’ keeping time and marking the end of each round while the others have the fun of ringing a method in front of me. I remember that you can either ring the method by remembering your place in the dance of the bells and just ‘feeling’ the pattern of the others moving around you, or by learning which bell to follow and watching their ropes so you know when to pull yours. I can’t remember the patterns to be able to follow by eyesight. But I can remember my place, I can feel the pattern of the others (thanks to the others being skilled at keeping their own places) and, as I keep my eyes unfocused, I start to see the pattern of the ropes and so be able to see who I’m following.

It's an addictive feeling for me, that sense of being part of a harmonious whole. I will be back next practice night. I have much to rediscover. I need to relearn how to hold the sally and tail end gently so I don’t earn myself ‘rock climber fingers’ next week from gripping too hard. As with weightlifting, I need to re-learn to adjust my movement fractionally. It was too easy last night to over-correct for being fractionally early by over-pulling and then needing to haul the bell back to prevent me being seriously late.

But bellringing, unlike bike riding, proved to be just like ‘riding a bike’. And I feel as if I’d added another layer to my connectedness. Bit by bit, the interlocking web of safety nets will come into place.

So, thank you Chris for your enthusiasm. And thank you Twitter for enabling strangers to connect. And thank you Square Peg because Chris and I only met in cyberspace through a shared love of your work. And thank you to the tower captain and ringers for being, simply, awesomely awesome at welcoming in the stranger.

Being and doing

And breathe!

I know I’ve pushed for too long when my skin flares up, my brain starts to fragment and my breathing is consistently shallow.

It feels as if I’m held together by tension, and if I relax, I may just disintegrate.

So it is definitely time to breathe. And relax my jaw. And experience the moment. And drop by shoulders.

Look at me! Even my relaxation turns into a list of and, and, and. Pressure upon pressure upon pressure. Rush, rush, rush.

Recently I have been spending a lot of time ‘in role’ and not much time ‘being me’. Being ‘in role’ is about performing, delivering, doing. ‘Being me’ is about finding that still point where I just am, and the response you get from me is the same whoever you are and whatever the context.

I have an ambivalent relationship with roles and being. I think roles make me more efficient. They help me focus, achieve and deliver. I like being ‘in role’ because I like achieving. Being in role also lets me do things that I struggle to face doing when I am ‘being me’. It’s the same for my daughter. When she has to do something that feels impossible for her, she hunts for a persona she is comfortable to put on that sees tasks like that as pleasurably simple.  I achieve ‘in role’ by using props like how I dress, sensory inputs (a smell, a taste, a texture) and how I hold my body.  She achieves ‘in role’ by imagining herself that person.

Being ‘in role’ has its dangers. Stay in roles too long and I forget who I am. It takes me an age to slow and deepen my breathing and find that spot where I just am. Until I have found that spot, I don’t process emotions.

Weeks like the last few weeks have required me to play several different roles, often within the same day. I’ve had very little time to switch between roles.  This exacerbates the dangers of being ‘in role’. When I am in a role, I don’t make connections between that role and what happens when I am in different roles. So it’s hardly surprising that I start to feel disconnected from myself and overwhelmed. When I do stop there are so many competing demands on my time, emotions and brain. There is just so much stuff to integrate and connect within me.

As I said, I play roles because that is how I am efficient, and how I manage to do things that I don’t feel capable of doing as me. But, perhaps, I am prioritising efficiency at the expense of being effective. I am less likely to contribute anything uniquely me when I am ‘in role’. I am more likely to adopt the processes and thinking that goes with that role, so come up with an efficient solution or output. My most effective work comes from me seeing situations differently, and therefore responding differently. And that only happens when I drop the role-playing and I am ‘being me’.

In some situations, I now ask whether we are going to interact in our roles, or as our whole selves. That’s my equivalent of asking people whether they want to leave their job title at the door. In my mind, this is also equivalent to asking people whether they want to collaborate (efficient work done ‘in role’) or coproduce (effective work that flows from ‘being who we are’).

Of course, for me, there’s the whole added dimension of living with a committee in my head. Being ‘in role’ is different from handing control to different internal people. But when I/we spend too much time in role, we lose our close internal cooperation and start to fragment. But that’s for another blog.

For now - just breathe. 

Coproduction lessons

I can't define coproduction. But I think I can spot it. And I think Barod and I have learned a few lessons about 'doing coproduction':

• you can't coproduce unless you can communicate freely
• you can't coproduce unless your shared vision is stronger than your desire for the familiar and personal comfort zone
• you can spot coproduction because anyone in the group can initiate anything (budget decisions, ideas, strategies, projects, parameters for working together, who should be involved), and everyone knows what the budget is
• coproduction isn't the only way to work together. Consultation and representation on boards are still important and valid.  What's vital is that we don't label something as 'coproduction' just because it sounds good or involves some form of working together.

Do those tests work for you when you reflect on your own experiences of coproduction? What would you add? What would you lose?

Putting the pieces together

I tend to take things I do lightly.

That's fine, until the day comes when you need to make a list and then I'm scrabbling to remember what I've done that is relevant.

It's like that with things I write. I make a list. Then I remember I wrote a chapter in a book published by RHP. Oh, and I know I've done articles for magazines. But can I remember which magazines, let alone which issues?

And it's like that with coproduction. It's time for me to make a list of what I've done, and I'm not sure where to start!

I have good reasons for resisting making lists. I hate people showing off what they've done, or treating themselves as more important because they can put more on their cv.

I have bad reasons for resisting making lists. I tend to dismiss anything I can do as being worthless. I fear being judged. I am too chaotic to be systematic about anything - and research relies heavily on being systematic.

Now I have a good reason to make a coproduction list. I'm going to the first meeting of people in South Wales who are interested in research and coproduction. To get and give the most, I need to marshal in my own brain what I've done, what I know, what I think, where I see research and coproduction in the future.

Blogging is one of my ways of thinking out loud and capturing that thinking. So here goes with an attempt to develop a timeline for my relationship with coproduction:

• went to a North Wales Working With Not To meet-up about coproduction and listened to Edgar Cahn
• went to hear Eddie Bartnik at a South Wales Coproduction Wales meet-up
• resisted when people started to call what Barod does 'coproduction' because I disliked the term
• worked out why I disliked how 'coproduction' was being used as a term, and found a way to explain what I want 'coproduction' to mean.
• worked with Constance of Wales Council for Voluntary Action on re-explaining 'coproduction' in terms that made sense to members of the public (Being At the Centre booklet)
• got involved with the ESRC research seminar series about academics, people with learning difficulties and practitioners researching together - and realised that it helped move things forward to combine thinking about inclusive/participatory research with coproduction thinking.
• Barod conceptualised what we mean by 'coproduction' in a slide show and workshop (thanks to Good Practice Exchange for giving us the chance to develop those, and Mel Nind for inviting us to adapt the slides for use in a research context at NRMF 2015)
• had a few exchanges with Professor Tony Bouvaird about coproduction
• kept developing ideas of ways to work together as equals within Barod, and between Barod and other organisations
• Barod explicitly 'did coproduction' with Jim Wright and Torfaen People First. We worked together from November 2016 to March 2017. I'm thinking through sociological stuff from my PhD, to see if I can explain why what we did felt like 'real coproduction'. We are also jointly writing up tips on 'doing coproduction'
• went to the launch for Coproduction Network Wales, and began to think it may be time to dip my toes into the formal side of developing coproduction as a public services practice in Wales.
• met Dr Gideon Calder to talk coproduction and ethics - and now have an invitation to the South Wales meet-up for people sharing an interest in coproduction and research.

Masked by that list is four years of thinking, reflecting, theorising and doing, which in itself draws on 20 years of thinking, reflecting, theorising and doing variations on 'working together' and 'consulting'.

I think it's possible to sum up the key things Barod and I have learned:

• you can't coproduce unless you can communicate freely
• you can't coproduce unless your shared vision is stronger than your desire for the familiar and personal comfort zone
• you can spot coproduction because anyone in the group can initiate anything (budget decisions, ideas, strategies, projects, parameters for working together, who should be involved), and everyone knows what the budget is
• coproduction isn't the only way to work together. Consultation and representation on boards are still important and valid.  What's vital is that we don't label something as 'coproduction' just because it sounds good or involves some form of working together.

And that's why the list is helpful. By putting together the list, it's helped me put the pieces together of what we have learned. And I reckon those four key points were worth the effort of making a list.

Welcoming myself home

It's a long time since I blogged.

This time a year ago, I didn't honestly think I would ever come back to my PhD. A lot has happened since then.

Here's the quick version:

• moved to Swansea
• husband (newly redundant) started exploring botanical papermaking. Quick plug for his Etsy shop and Twitter account
• have new supervisors and a new approach to the PhD
• work part time in Barod and study PhD part time
• just starting to regain confidence and find my feet

We've given me until the end of September to get back to having fun with theory, enjoy getting to know and think with new people, and play with concepts.

1st October is time enough to start thinking about the shape of the PhD and what information I will need. For now, I am happy, creative and (ironically perhaps) enjoying the freedom to make the connections that lead to long term research impact.

Along the way, and believe it or not, it's part of the playing, I'm going to have a go at consulting on a topic using three methods. To play fair, I'm reading up on how to do them so I can try to use the methods in the way they are intended. The terms Focus Group and World Cafe are banded around so loosely that it's been an eye-opener going back to literature about them. My third method is Barod's Coffee Shop Conversations. It's almost time for a blog about them - but not quite! I'm still working out quite how to explain them clearly. Let's just say for now that the Coffee Shop Conversations method is a world apart from other public consultation methods, but not a million miles from what some ethnographers get up to down the pub.

So, I'm back home. Back where I love. Back where I'm relaxed. Back using a blog to help me think aloud and letting me stash that thinking in a place where even I find it again.